Date: 1949-1952, 1953

"Hard, hard work, excavating and digging, mining, moling through tunnels, heaving, pushing, moving rock, working, working, working, working, working, panting, hauling, hoisting. And none of this work is seen from the outside. It's internally done. It happens because you are powerless and unable t...

— Bellow, Saul (1915-2005)

Date: December, 1954

"My mind, a vagrant, dreams on the shining Alps."

— Scott, Peter Dale (b. January 11, 1929)

Date: 2007

"And at the same time, a censor somewhere in my brain was simplifying things for me, helping me to cope with the necessary."

— Engel, Howard (b. 1931)

Date: September 2, 2011

"When we fight an urge, it feels like a strenuous effort, as if there were a homunculus in the head that physically impinged on a persistent antagonist."

— Pinker, Steven (b. 1954)

Date: September 2, 2011

"The 'will' in willpower is not some mysterious 'free will,' a ghost in the machine that can do as it pleases, but a part of the machine itself."

— Pinker, Steven (b. 1954)

Date: December 31, 2016

"Rather (in the words of the neuroscientist Georg Striedter), brains evolve like companies do: they reorganize as they expand."

— Barrett, Lisa Feldman (b. 1963)

Date: 2024

"I wish I could explain to him that I don't want to think about her any more, but thinking about her is not a choice; that--even though Jen is no longer in my physical life--the room inside my mind that has been occupied by her for the last four years still exists. I want to convert it to a home ...

— Dolly Alderton (b. 1988)